1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image reading and forming apparatus including a reading unit that reads out an image of a document, and an image forming unit that records the image on a recording sheet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image forming apparatus equipped with a document reading device discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-186996, presence of documents is detected near trailing edges of set documents, and it is determined whether a document to be sent out is a final document. Based on this determination result, the image forming apparatus is configured to control whether to perform advance feeding of a recording sheet. In other words, if absence of a document is detected by a detection unit after the document has been sent out, this document can be determined to be the final document, and the advance feeding of the recording sheet corresponding to a next document is stopped by a control unit. In this manner, the advance feeding of unnecessary recording sheet is prevented.
The configuration discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-186996 includes a tray with a length the same as a maximum document size. Further, the configuration includes trailing edge detection sensors arranged for each document size, which results in an increased manufacturing cost. Furthermore, with respect to documents other than standard form sizes, a delay time arises before detection is carried out, which results in a delay in starting a recording operation.